MerchantsDivisionMeeting-2020NFBPAConvention
All right, it's 205 we can get started. We get people on here. I don't know this Pennsylvania people are usually late anyways, so I need to tell them they're known for that.
Me I'm here for your support. Thank you cue them out later.
He's one of one of my people here. So
that's good.
One of the Ron pages my secretary. And let's say I am the president of the Pennsylvania association of blind merchants. We created this last state meeting in November of 2019. So it took a little bit of time with this Corona stuff, but we got it together. We do a monthly haulin zoom meeting, the second Wednesday of the month. We also do a Friday night 7pm Family Feud. And we have also included many other states, Virginia, Indiana, Texas, Florida, whoever wants to join us they're more than welcome. And that's always a good time. But I'm going to get down do a little bit of housekeeping. I have the minutes from our last meetings. I'm gonna go ahead and play those see how that works.
What happened?
call to order 6:45pm October 14 2020. Roll Call and attendance was taken. September minutes were read accepted and seconded is read Treasurer's Report given by Tony moraira. October balance $1,792. Report accepted and seconded is read. discussed membership drive for 2021. membership dues pa BM dollar 10 include $5 for national join Greater Philadelphia chapter membership campaign to begin next month. reminders October is neat the blind MONTH october 15. National white cane safety day NFV posti convention virtual November 12 215. Pa BM division meeting November 13 at 2pm virtually on zoom. Virtual happy hour Family Feud night every Friday 7pm zoom. Members discuss pricing and product comparisons. discussion and reminders about accessible voting. Next PBM monthly meeting zoom call at NFB p state convention 2pm November 13. Meeting adjourned at 7:35pm respectfully submitted camela bokaro
minutes for your last meeting. Did Tony pop on or no? I do not have a Treasurer's Report, Tony's miaa. So we can move on. I just want to do a little housekeeping and that was it. We don't have any elections. This time. It's for next year since we're new. I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Nikki and let him speak on the behalf of the National Association of blind merchants.
Thank you, Pam and you guys are right. I know Stan's very active and I know Tony's been very active. So we're glad to be here we have a number of our board members and surrounding states, from Ohio to West Virginia to Maryland, New Jersey here to welcome you guys and you have to find out more about what you're doing more about what we're doing so that we can work together. And I hope that when we speak to many of the other Pennsylvania that you are active with the National with the state affiliate and support your president Lynn heights there who's been doing a great job for a number of years. Let me give you some things that are going on and I like some of our other chat and Mike and Melba and in in the net speak for a little bit too. They can tell you a little bit that's going on in their states and stuff. You know we are all hurting here in New Jersey. We are working 11 out of 40 blind vendors. I've been working since co That's the post offices in a two military bases. The rest of our state and federal buildings are closed, and will probably not reopen until sometime in June, July. We're looking at now, we're hoping that we can make it that long. And but we are doing everything we can to make sure that we can, you know, we have fought hard for the $20 million for COVID relief. We're a little disappointed that it did not get into Senate Appropriations. But it did pass in the House Appropriations. And we will find out what our next steps are to help make sure that when it goes to conference, that that stays in there. We're still waiting on the waiver for some type of see for Bill. But then again, there'll be a new Secretary of Education, and a new commissioner of RSA. So we'll see what changes that will be made there. Some, some dates I want to give you that are coming up so that you can put them on your calendar. This goes for everybody on December 18. It's a Friday night at five o'clock. I got really jazzed up from last week or Melbourne mixer that she had in Maryland. So that was good to co chair this mixer on December at five o'clock somewhere. It's going to be just a welcome and talk about the holidays. And talk about how great it's going to be the 2020 is ending. And our featured speaker will be president Mark riccobono of the National Federation of the Blind he'll join us for a a tall one or a cold one or whatever anybody's using. So that's a February, March, December at right before we before Christmas. We'll be having a merchant gathering of the women's initiative of our Emerging Leaders Initiative of our board Federation family who wants to join us to hear President riccobono. net will talk a little bit about plans we had for 2021. Let me give you some updates on 2021. On Thursday, January 7 at three o'clock, we have commitments from Rehab Services Administration, Mr. Jesse hartal General Services Administration, Dimitri summers,
Namah
natso National Association truckstop operators to talk about rest area commercialization. And also we will have a report from our national center to talk about what the new Congress looks like, for us as people who are blind and also members of the Randal Shepard community. That's January 7 on January 2014, starts our lead 2021 leadership training leadership for Federation leadership training for your community leadership training for your family, leadership training, more important everything for business. And on the 20 on the 14th of January will be second city, the famous comedy club from Chicago. We were going to have them presented blast. And so we'll start off our leadership training on how comedy and improv teach leadership in the Randall Shepard community. So we're very excited about that. We will also have Dr. In the coming weeks. Dr. Fred Schroeder in just a few minutes ago, we booked a tremendous speaker who we had 10 years ago speak towards Dr. Willy jolly from Washington DC. Dr. Jolly is one of the most foremost speakers on motivation. And I just spoke, I got off the phone with him and he is committed to doing the it looks like the 28th of January. Dr. Jolly is his famous speaker. If you go if you go go and go online and listen to some of these videos, you'll get fired up. I got fired up just from talking to him. But he loves the National Federation of blind he loves our organization. And he has agreed to do a zoom training for us on come back from crisis is be the name of his talk. And he's just tremendous. So we're excited about that. We will also have a presentation on Robert's Rules. I know we talked about them all the time. They're like everybody's bylaws, or what are they we found a dynamic speaker who does a great presentation on Robert's Rules. That's another one. And we're working on a few other ones, which I won't tell you but I could tell you they will all be exciting. Some of the ones that we have planned are really different and dynamic. So could be everything from lessons from the Godfather on how to run a business to some exciting things. And then so we have some other trainings coming up on Randall Shepard 202. We've already talked to Jim gasholder give us a history about the 74 amendments and coronelli amendments. You know, there's a lot I don't know, and I've been around 29 years, but there's a lot that people have around less than know about what the consumer groups did what the National Federation of the Blind what committee of blind vendors did to get things you know, started in this country with the 74 amendments that they can make You know, the franchise's that we partner with like Dunkin Donuts and chick fil a and subway, the buying group that we tried many years, those are all things that, you know, the committee of blind vendors did military dining, you know, the state agency of Louisiana turned it down. And it was blind vendors, they got together, push for it, to make sure that we got military dining. And, you know, now we run a number of them. We just want a couple lawsuits, thanks to the National Federation of blind at Fort Bliss in Texas, and Fort Riley in Kansas. So a lot going on. I want to thank everybody for jumping on a lot of these calls. We were all on Ohio's call last week Maryland's goal and Texas CALL. So if Ed Birmingham was on his call, but if not, then Melba and Mike and Chad and and that if you'd like to say hello to Pennsylvania, on what you're doing a little bit in your state, and you know, a couple minute, three minute warning type of thing. And give me an update at Birmingham, if not Mike Colburn, and then Melba, and then we'll go on from there.
How long should I give it? I know he's got to unmute his phone.
Go ahead, start. Mike will come up next. That's fine.
Okay. Mike O'Brien, a board member and ABM, proud Federation is pretty new to the game. But I'm all in Minnesota where we're not doing a whole lot. Most of our people aren't working. We're in a lot of state facilities. We do have a couple post office and we are in a couple prisons and state hospitals that are holding their own. We do have universities and community colleges in Minnesota, but even that's been limited. So we're just kind of limping along. But,
um,
you know, I love what Nikki is doing with na BM and connecting all of us across the country. You know, it's I don't feel like I don't feel like I'm alone up here in the cornfields. I know, I have a whole nation of people behind me. And that's what, to me. That's why this is so great. We can share information keep each other going. And like Nikki Oh, well, you know, like Nikki tells us, you know, we're gonna have to reinvent ourselves. And that's what these calls also do for do for me. I bring this stuff back to Minnesota and share it with the people that aren't as active. So.
Um, yeah, so
that's about it. I just want to tell everybody where I'm here if you guys ever need anything. And Mike wants to get involved in family feud. I can tell you that.
It's a lot of fun.
There you go.
Thanks, Nikki. Thanks.
Okay. This is
clearly your voicemail is being transcribed by youmail.
Oh, this is mocha. Can you guys hear me? Yes, yes. Okay, good. Hi, Pam. And Hi, Castlevania. So glad to join you guys today. And I just want to echo what Mike said about. It's wonderful to kind of hop on and see what other folks around the country are doing. I am a board member in ABM, a coordinator for the women's initiative. coined as wise W is a women's initiative supporting entrepreneurship. And Pam, I'm so happy to see that. As a woman, you stepped up taken on a leadership role role without the Pennsylvania Association. So that is so wonderful. And it's good to see women also stepping into the role of chair, their committee chairs, and that's that's also a good thing. here in Maryland, we didn't have the Association of blind merchants. We did have our networking mixer last week, which was absolutely wonderful, so thrilled. And so yes, I am happy shoot the December 18 mixer, so that's going to be fun, and it's going to be a blast, right? Right before the holidays. Well, here in Maryland, I tell you all morning, I have been really helping members apply for grants because Governor Hogan did announce yesterday that he released our more COVID relief funding, and there is $50 million earmarked for restaurants. We also have with the county that I live in George's county, and we have someone that from the county specifically helping our vendors to live in the county to receive relief funding. So today the application portal opened up for the restaurant resiliency fund. And I'm telling you, our folks were on it at 12 o'clock and they were calling me questions. It's a wonderful problem to have. They're taking action so I wouldn't I don't know what venue. You know what your status is for relief funds but I would suggest just kind of staying in touch with your with your state and your municipal government. It's to see what's available. Because you never know there may be something there for those operators that are negatively affected. So that's all I have. We have quite a few board members here. So I'll just pass it on to the next one. Thank you.
Okay, I'll just go into, hey, this is Chad KEANEY. I'm executive chair for West Virginia. I'm also Federation's, who is also currently the affiliate treasurer for NFA, West Virginia. And as Nick he calls me Our merchant leader for an IBM. So that I guess, right represent West Virginia. I know the problems we're all having in West Virginia is very familiar with a lot of vendors aren't working. The few that had been blessed with being able to continue to work are now really begin to feel the bite that's happening here. One of the things we can talk about is that thanks to the help of NFP of West Virginia, we were able to, to negotiate with our SLA with the help of Terry Smith, and dream McDonald's to finally get rules approved end of the process for approval to RSA. We've had some many, many, many issues with our SLA, and thanks to you. And if you're West Virginia and their support, we were able to push these initiatives through. And but as for everything else, we're just like everybody else in here, where we're all suffering, we're all trying to find opportunities in this crisis, where she cannot everything without talking to other states are trying to create partnerships and to continue to get these calls and to and to be on them is so important. I mean, in times that we don't have the opportunity to work we can at least take the opportunity to learn and and to get information and knowledge that maybe we could apply. Or something fun mica members mixer last week was just it was just fantastic. It really really was. That's calling Ohio was great information. Texas was very, very spot on. So with each call that I get on on informed learn, I share. And just like Mike said, even every one is crazy people from Minnesota. encounters you need something, you know, if you need a question answered, I'm always available, I can be contacted, I'm accessible to a pm or 2pm. But I never sleep anyway. And I'd like to find out, I just like to thank you for having me on this call. It's a real privilege to be here to, to hear and share with you. And it's just really a great honor. And thank you very much.
Thank you.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for inviting all of us on here. We're real happy to be here. I'm Annette Lutz, I am the president of the merchants division in Ohio. I'm also our elected committee chair, and I'm a member of our state affiliate board of directors. So I keep kind of busy. Unfortunately, we're kind of in the same state that a lot of everybody else is. Here in Ohio. We have many of our folks who aren't working we do have our post office people and our rest stop people who are working some but obviously the universities and the government buildings aren't doing near as much as they should be. And don't know when that's going to happen. I said I think all of us across the country are pretty much in the same boat. One blessing that has come out of this, though, are meetings like this one and and other ones that my others around the country speakers have mentioned that we're able to learn from each other. And because of all these meetings being via zoom, we're able to jump in and I'm real pleased to be here at a Pennsylvania meeting. It's probably not something I would have done if things were under normal circumstances. And many of y'all were at our viewing last week, we're trying to revitalize our merchants division in Ohio and is the group like you guys and learning from you that's helping us to do that. So I appreciate the invite to be here and I look forward to listening to the rest of your meeting. Thanks
Was there any Now soon from the board going to want to speak.
Pamela, it's at Birmingham, I apologize that a little phone issue before when I was talking, so, okay, I'd like to tell you, they saved the best for last. But that would just be an outright lie. Oh, but just to echo like everybody else, it's just a pleasure to be here. You know, Illinois the same pretty much as everybody else we got about 20% of our facilities are open just the rest areas in the post offices. We got one county hospital markogiannakis been working from day one, and somehow or another miraculously has avoided getting COVID. I don't know how he does it. But he's been doing that. Most of our federal and state billing, all of our state prisons and federal prisons are completely shut down. The majority of the government buildings are staffed at probably five to 10%. So if you're working, you're working very sparingly. We're on the verge of getting completely shut down once again, as the COVID numbers begin to rise. I'm thinking that probably right after Thanksgiving, the governor is going to come out with another Shelter in Place Order. So it's good, it's gonna get worse before it gets better here. And, you know, I guess the The good thing is, we've got a lot of tremendous training look forward to in 2021. We got the mixture to look forward to on the 18th. So there's, there's light at the end of the tunnel, you know, it's just a matter of you just have to have the right attitude, try to stay positive. And I hope everybody just stay healthy, stay safe and not again, thanks for having us on the call.
Thank you,
Dan, this is Nikki if I could just for a couple minutes. And and we talked about that light at the end of the tunnel. We hope it's not a train coming at us. But so we hope it is, you know, we know there's going to be light we've been through Sandy, we've been through 911. And we've been through a lot of things in our lives. And we're going to make it and we're going to make sure that we do. And I do want to talk about a couple of things about opportunity that I want our merchants to note here to think about. There. I had a talk last week with GSA. And I can tell you that and I've had talks with Sodexo, and with Aramark, that cafeterias are not going to reopen anytime soon at all. I mean, they will be the last to reopen. If buildings do start getting people back, it's going to be vending and some type of micro market. And it's very important that we that are no less some states do very well with micro markets. And other states do not we do have, you know, we did a training on micro markets with translucid. That is on our website that people can listen to, if they have any questions about micromarkets. We can tell you, you know who is operating and what states are operating so that your SLA can call them or your blind birds can call you know, Willie black in Utah operates five of or Sharon Treadway in, in Tennessee that operates two of them. So that's going to be first we need to make sure that and if any buildings are were going to have cafeterias in them, and they are not operating cafeterias and they switched over to markets, like at a building in Maryland, that's that's against the law. And GSA is going to enforce that. They their contract calls for them to provide meals, hot meals, other type of things. And that is something we need to watch out for. The other thing is a lot of the third party venting we do with whether it's with canteen or ABI or the corner adventures, or CC vending or whoever it is or accent throughout the country, they are hurting, probably worse than we are, you know, a lot of their buildings are not open, and they have a lot more expenses than we have. But we need to make sure that to get in touch with them and make relationships with them and say, Hey, if you're giving up locations, we let us look at it, you know, let us do them, you know, where they have to buy new machines or, you know, warehouses or staffing or more trucks or whatever. A lot of them are giving up locations around the country. Well, we need to be their answer. We've picked up a couple of nice locations around the country because of this, and we should pick up a lot more. So we really, really need to do some outreach to say, Hey, you know, if you're giving something up, let us look at it and it's like, guaranteed we'll take it. But you know, you had a couple of little routes together or you add on something to your stand alone now that when it comes back, at least you're making some money. So really try to get relationship and find out who your third party vendors are, and see what they're doing, you know, with some of the places and also if you're in a building that has a cafeteria that's not part of ours that's, you know, one of the big companies or somebody else that's local, and they're not operating a cafeteria, then that is wrong and those opportunities we need to look at and those are up Judas, we need to go after, as you know, like I said, When crisis, common opportunity is there, and this is a crisis we're going through, and we need to come up with a plan, and we need to do that. And that's why we're here. It's great to do these mixers. And it's real fun. You know, I'm kind of mad at New Jersey has been asked to participate in family feud. But that's okay.
We did have a couple people from New Jersey one time, okay.
You're probably afraid that we'd win every one or whatever. But that's okay.
But, you know,
you got a lot of people on this call that all said, they're only a phone call away. And believe me, they do that one of the other things, too, is that, we know that Stan, and I want to thank you, I was there last, I forget, last time we were in Pittsburgh, we went out to the mall, I guess that was two years ago now or a year and a half ago. I guess it was two years ago, you know that we talked about this and talked about going to the convention, which Lynn will tell you our merchants never went to never got involved. But this is a new, you know, a new group, the old guard is gone. But we still have to reach out to that old guard and mate, find out why they're not part of our organization, or whatever and stuff. But everyone that's on this call a net chat jet didn't have much to do with the Federation, I got to tell you, at a state convention is now in a board member of the is the treasurer of the affiliate. So everyone needs to get involved not just with the merchants, but with state affiliate national affiliate, you know, we're not going to have a Washington, you know, Washington seminar would be virtual this year, it's important that you still participate, to find out what the issues are, for all of us as as blind people. And we need to know that and we need to help you can make, it's gonna be interesting to make an appointment virtual, with our congressmen and our senators, but you know, it's gonna be very different this year in Washington, it's going to be different over the past four years. And we will have some changes that we need to be part of those changes. So make sure you get involved with we will not be usually the merchants to a meeting in Washington seminar, because of LEED 2021, we will not be, we're always gonna be looking for opportunities to make sure you're involved. And we're very excited that we have a vergence division. And I want to thank them for your work and Stan and Tony. Because I know those are the ones that made it happen. And Kurt has been part of the Federation for a long time. So if I missed anybody that's on this call, thank you too, for being part of this. We're excited. I know Lynn's excited. And anything we could do to help you. We're only a phone call away, we're only stayed away, you know, we're all we surround you everywhere. And so let us know what we can do to help you. And let's, you know, be part of our women's initiative be part of our leadership. That's the leadership that we're talking about the training is for everybody. It's not like emerging leaders, it's for everybody, we're going to open it up to the Federation family to, to take part in that for some of the trainings because everybody can learn from his leadership training. So be part of it, make some time could save the dates, three o'clock eastern time, January 7 14th 21st 28th, and February 4, and there is no charge for this. So blind merchants.org is our website, plenty of information on there. trainings are on there. They're also on they have the training of some of the trainings running the website, also. So look forward to leadership look forward to Randall Shepherd 202, and the forward for wherever else we're coming up with in the future.
Awesome, thank you. I really appreciate all the support and all the information from everybody. It is just wonderful to know that we have that back behind us. And we have all the ideas from everybody else. If we have a question, we can just put it out there and we get response back quickly from other states. This is just I want to say it's just great. I really appreciate it. For everybody who's involved. And anybody who's interested in getting involved. You can always reach out to me for our family feud. You can always reach out to me via either my phone number, which is 215-200-3696 or by email which is one blind hippie which is the word 101 e blind B Li n d hippy hrpp ie@yahoo.com and I'll get you the zoom link for that it's a happy hour it's also a little bit more fun because it's an after hours Family Feud games, so we do get a little crazy. So it's 17 and above, no minors allowed. So little inappropriate at times, but it's all in fun. So thank you. I want to go on to our next speaker I have is Andy from accessible pharmacy. He's got some good information, which is good for everybody, Andy. Hey, Pam.
Thank you, everyone. Thank
you, Pam. Thanks for including me. I'll make this brief. So just to share with everyone thanks again. So I'm Andy from accessible pharmacy. We are a Pennsylvania based at suburban Philadelphia. We are a home delivery pharmacy. It specializes in the blind community. And the background of our business is my business partner is blind. He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when he was 20. And he went back to school and basically reinvented himself and ended up getting his his doctorate at Drexel University in marketing with a specific focus on retail accessibility, and how it relates to the blind community. And his dissertation was actually a his entire dissertation was the accessibility of the top 100 retailers in America, both at the location online and on the telephone. And one of the things that we discovered we were like reviewing his thesis together, and he and I know each other because our kids play Little League together. So on the sidelines, he would always share information. And he was speaking about the void in the pharmacy space. And how unsupportive the pharmacy at the retailer, pharmacy industry as retailers. We're the blind community. And so we spent some time trying to convince some of the larger pharmacies to become more accessible. And we sort of hit a brick wall. So we decided to do it ourselves. And we lost her business. So
our goal was
to start April 1. And obviously the world recovered. But it's been it's been positive, we're picking up patients every day. So I just two thoughts. One is an announcement on Monday, this past week, we just became the official pharmacy partner of be my eyes, we're really excited to share that information. So we can help patients with diabetes support everything from asking questions about pills to managing their insulin. We're going to be doing a home COVID testing program with BMI starting in December, and in a pan and asked me to come and just share some of our experience in the marketplace. But I also want to learn, I imagine at some point in the future when the smoke clears with a pandemic. There are ways in which we can collaborate with your association. I don't know what that what that's going to be like, but I'm going to keep the door open. So like I said, when the smoke clears, and we're experiencing better times, we can put our heads together in a conversation like this, and figure out how we can collaborate to do business together. So thanks again, if anyone has any questions, our websites accessible pharmacy.com. And I wish everyone Good luck, and thanks again.
Thank you so much, Andy. Like the next I have one more speaker, which is a licensee from Pennsylvania. Ben Voss either.
I'm here.
All right. Yeah.
All right. I was hoping you would introduce me by saying Ben's going to talk about this. Because my memory isn't very good. And I lost my notes. But I can wing it. Yeah. Pam asked me to come on and talk a little bit about history of of our program. And I can't help talking about history without talking about future AI in 2020 stocks, to put it bluntly. But if we can wipe that off, and look at the future and say what, you know, what lessons can we learn from this and look back at some of the things that we've been through in the past? And how can we apply our knowledge to moving forward? I, I see it, I'm an optimist. And I see a bright future for at least for our program. And from what I've seen of the other state programs, I think that the program as a whole nationwide, really can through some some reinventing and some trial and error kinds of things. I think we can come out of it. We might be quite a bit of a leaner program, but I think we can be a meaner program to and be better off. I started out. I've been in the program 18 years now. And I was actually the first class to go through a new training that Pennsylvania had set up at what was supposed to be the the latest and greatest biggest and best training center that had ever been and it was it was a huge. I was a place called the Hiram Andrews center and it was a huge Commonwealth building where they trained all kinds of different VR programs and things And the idea behind it was that we were going to be able to pull the best from retailing, and accounting and Culinary Arts and Business Management and all of these things and put them together to make a world class program. And the reality turned out to be that we got there and nobody knew what to do with blind people. We, we really threw them for a loop. And it was just it was an interesting time, but it was not a good training experience. And I'm happy to say that we've moved past that, but I was in training for I want to say it was about 20 weeks. And in that time, never opened a vending machine watched a lot of videos, because they didn't understand the blind people didn't see the videos. But we, you know, we watched a lot of videos, and we we listen to a lot of a lot of talks about things, and didn't learn a whole lot because they didn't know what to teach us. And so I came to my first stand, which was a little snack bar in a county courthouse. And I had never operated the commercial kitchen before it had grills and fryers and things that I had never been around. So that was that was an interesting experience diving into the pool and wondering if there was going to be water. But But I made it. But that that building actually is sort of a metaphor for what our program is. That's like I said that was the beaver county courthouses the little tiny out of the way County, and a little tiny out of the way courthouse. And there was a guy and this is this is just some oral history that I've heard about it. There was a guy back in the late 30s, probably named Joe somebody, I don't even remember his last name. And he on his own without the help of VR or any state agencies, he on his own approached the county, and asked if he could set up a little stand and he sold cigarettes in newspapers and coffee and things out of a little cart that he closed up the end of the day. And he made his money basically doing that would help him out by saying you know, he they would buy something for a couple dollars. And they would tell him they paid with a five, but really they paid with the 20. And that was that was their way of helping him out. And I don't, I don't like the charity aspect of that. And I'm also a little concerned that they didn't tell him what the bills were. So he might have been given 20 out in change when he meant to be given fives. So I don't know if the system works or not. But he was there for a decade. And eventually the our program came and found him and said, You know we can we can help you and we can get you equipment. And we can do all of these things. And he came into the program that way. But he had already been doing what we do. When he retired, another guy took over and was there for a number of years. And when he retired, they built a new courthouse, and I was actually the first licensee in the new courthouse.
I was there for a few years learning how to how to run a kitchen and I ran a small snack bar there. The county went through some layoffs and it just wasn't a viable business anymore. And I was able to move to a post office and run and run a vending location. Again, having had no vending training. So that was another another trial by post office, which was which was interesting. And I was there for a few years and I've been blessed to be out on the interstate since then. So I've had experience in almost all of the different types of locations that our program in Pennsylvania has. I haven't done a big cafeteria or anything like that. But I've done interstate vending, I've done post office vending, I've done a snack bar, which had a lot of aspects of a dry stand as well. And over that time, I've learned a lot of things. But I think mostly what I've been impressed with is while we have been while it's easy, I'll say to pick on our business agents or our SLA or to you know, give them a hard time for the most part. People that I've dealt with, have really had a heart for what they're doing and I've I've been on our committee now for two years, and I have been hugely impressed with RMS SLA is willingness to to work with us and their true desire to help us out. And I just met Nicky The first time I met Nicky was at that Pittsburgh meeting where we went to see the micro market. And that's that's the first time I was exposed to the wider community outside of Pennsylvania, and I was I was really impressed with that as well. I think moving forward, while our numbers are shrinking, we were I want to say we were over 60, licensees when I came in, something like that. And we're at 23. Today. And I know some states are, are even worse off than that. But I think moving forward, the answer might be, you know, consolidating some of these old locations into routes and things like that, especially when we have some of these smaller buildings. But Rs, la at least is, I think, willing to look at that possibility and has been eager to work with us they were tremendous to work with through the pandemic, we unfortunately have, we still have four people out of work. Four out of 23 is a lot better than then a lot of states are. So we're we're doing wonderfully well, unless you're one of those four guys, you might disagree. For doing really well. And I think a lot of that is due to our committee, thanks to Tony, thanks to Pam, thanks to our SLA. And thanks to the people at the national level, like Nikki and Terry who are always there to help us out along with all the other chairs around. So as far as the future goes, I'm excited that, you know, once that this pandemic may change the title of doing it certainly will change the timetable of what we're doing. And it may change the direction some of what we're doing, but it's not going to change the determination of what we're doing. It's not going to change the resolve of the people that do it. And it's not going to change the fact that this, this program has a bright future, at least in my eyes in Pennsylvania. So I'm excited to get into micro Mart, I'm excited to while we might lose some people in some locations, I'm excited to see what that might mean for consolidating those into vending routes and making opportunities for people where there weren't opportunities before. So that's that's my spiel. And that's my, my story from my, my time on the committee to, you know, over the past 18 years up to my time on the committee, my official because I guess I should have introduced myself my official position on the committee as the Western District Rep. But I recently told our coordinator at a meeting when he first came our first meeting with him, I think my official position should just be comic relief, because mostly what I do is crack jokes at inappropriate times on recorded minutes. So I'll stick around any questions, and I'll try to keep the answers appropriate, but I can't make it.
Thank you, thank you so much been? Yes, I do see a bright future for us. We just got to keep that positive thoughts going. For us. There are people that are waiting, I do know personally people that are waiting to get into our program male and female. So that's wonderful, when that gets going, but I want to know, does anybody have any questions for any of the speakers?
Actually, my question, Pam is check what you were there was just talking about consolidating to try to create routes. I'll just like to tell you, I'm a route vendor. My route runs for runs, let's put it this way. I'll probably put a normal year about $35,000 a year in travel, which may be a lot some and maybe y'all you do very little to others. If anytime that you guys want to talk about the positives and negatives of running around or how to consolidate, you need some help. I'd be more than happy to you know, at least give the folksy wisdom of the hillbilly biker to help you guys have
much appreciated. Thank you. Anyone else
I just want to add Pam, this is ron ron page. I just want to add I didn't know if we wanted to put out there but our Director of our SLA will be leaving us this month. So we're hoping that we can get the new people that are assigned his position or
whatever To work with us
as far as routes and in the Harrisburg area, which I don't know, if you're familiar, the central part of Pennsylvania, there's several buildings that have closed down that had snack bar type or cafeteria, that are not reopening. And we're kind of as a committee, up near where to go with this. And we don't want to see the building set empty. But we'd like to develop ideas of routes or something so that we can put some licensees to work. Is that right, Pam?
Yes, that's correct. I'm one of them that needs to get to work.
Alright,
anybody else out there? Lynn, did you have anything you wanted to add?
Pam, it's Emily Lydon had to run down to the end of the student meeting. So
ran out. She ran out on your pants. All right.
This is Kirk.
Kirk, go ahead.
I've been looking to open up a deli grocery type place. Some of the ones I've found are great. But the investments fairly high. And, or laundromat, which is a lot higher? Are there any grants out there for starting up a business? And if so, how do I
tap into it?
So Kurt, you're in Pennsylvania, right?
Yes,
I would suggest is going to the state of website and they should have a Department of Commerce. That website should have a litany of resources as a start for you as a startup business. Hmm, that that would be my suggestion as to where to start.
Okay. All right. So I would go on to pa.com or.org. You have look for look for Department of Commerce, Department of Commerce, go in there and see if there's any grants. Absolutely. Okay,
well, that's good.
Thank you, oh, and Kurt, a couple of things. Um, you know, with these washers and dryers, and laundromats type of thing. We bought them in New Jersey, but I know another vendor in Maryland at least ism, or hasn't doesn't leave some I'm sorry, has a company that comes in and puts them in and gets a commission from them. And that's something you should look at. Also, there's other ways to do things. I know a lot of people we talked the other day about food trucks, which is becoming very popular food trailers. And we talked about, you know, looking to look at old school buses, the smaller school buses or kind of like the access link type of things, converting those into things, or working with companies to say hey, can you put a food truck outside of my place and see if how busy it is before you purchase one. So there's ways to do that. There's also a company that we had speak at Washington seminar a couple years ago, I was in Vegas at our merchants meeting for called Fran net, which is franchises different franchises you could look at and the work that they do is free that they'll work with you to see what you're interested in how much it would cost, talk about grants and everything speaking about grants is I was on a call yesterday with the state Restaurant Association. And there are a lot of state and local county grants that we didn't even know about in New Jersey that are available because it COVID for people like us that are you know, small business entrepreneurs in the food service business. So please look at your county and everything. They said there's some counties in New Jersey are just dying, they have money, and it's only used for this for for, you know, might be $5,000 could be up to $10,000 or even more. But please look it if you're looking for some kind of money or grants, look for COVID relief or from your county or your state we are eligible for those, you know, your business is registered, it has a name, you pay taxes, it's not a VR thing. So please look for, you know, for those things, even in your state or your county also, to see if those things are available.
How would I find the place where you said that, like the laundromat, they would they would help set it set it up and then just take a percentage.
I'll find out for you and I'll send you something actually.
Hey, Nick is checking. One company you might want to look at as a company that I had when I first come into the program after They're still in existence is continental laundry. I think they were based in pencil based in Pennsylvania actually. So you may want to do a search and see if they're still in existence. And if they are, we were doing a 5149 split with with them. And I had a federal prison that they had machines that say, that may be one possibility for you. And they were there. They were there for a few years. And let's start again, naming the name of the company is continental laundry. Okay, I'll check that out.
And then if the other person could send me that information, I give you my email address.
I got it. I got it.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
All right. Wonderful. Anybody else out there with questions or comments?
I know Shelley is on the call from Louisiana. If you'd like to say hello, or show me or anybody else. Frank Roberts might be on the call from Connecticut. Yeah, I'm one of your shows your show.
Man from Louisiana. Very, very interesting. This. I'm glad I was able to get on very interesting stuff. In this state we're doing I would say halfway. Well, I think the majority of the vendors may be working halfway. There's not that many there are not. There is a few that still not open that a thing else. You know, these columns are great. They really are. I'm actually learning a lot of stuff, considering how long I've been in the program.
Thank you.
Thank you. Very large at Birmingham and I went to visit Shelby last year, a couple few years ago, state of Louisiana, the governor passed a executive order that would make all vending machines on state property. 100% Vendee. 100%, healthy, I'm sorry, 100%, healthy. And we went down and did a fit pick presentation for the governor and his employees. And we gave free product out of new healthy products and stuff like that show he runs a great location. He's got a big cafeteria and 20 some vending machines, and does a great job down there. And they and we got the governor to stop with 100%. And they went for the Fitbit. So that's again working together. And working with our partners at nammo. Who came down here with us. And we did a great job down there and turn that around and explained it to the governor and got that executive order stopped. So you know, it was crazier. It was 100%. Healthy in. I mean, you couldn't sell a bottle of soda. Yeah, wow itself. So we got that stopped, we went down and and I were giving out free product to the employees and said here try this. And they said what are you doing this for? We said, because if you saw this in the vending machine, you probably wouldn't eat it. But if you try it and like it, you'll buy it. So we did that. And the state of Illinois did a big thing with Fitbit back then. And you know, it just shows that you can do some Healthy Vending and stuff like that. But so if you have any questions about serving Healthy Vending stuff, jelly net are the guys to talk to. That was American Heart Association that tried to do it. Yep. Yep.
This is great.
This is Frank, Louisiana. I'll forgive there used to be committee chair from Louisiana, and another one of our virgin leaders down here.
Awesome, welcome. Thank you, everybody.
This is Mike Coburn, again in Minnesota. Um,
maybe it's time to remind that some of us across the country also we're opening up some VR cases, getting some technology, getting some training that maybe maybe it's a good maybe now's a good time to
learn some things or catch up on some things or brush up on some skills. I know I did here in Minnesota. I'm going through that process now. I was taken off of the waitlist. And just sort of working that out now with the
with the counsellors and whatnot. So,
yes, awesome. Great. Yes. I just called yesterday and got put on the list. So I'm waiting. So we'll see what happens with that. But yes, I need everybody in Pennsylvania Dude, I heard some of the states they got like a lot of their licensees. I have open VR cases. So that's great. We need to get moving on that to Pennsylvania,
your computer training, mobility training, and then you could also get inventory. If you're open for another reason. You just can't get open for inventory. But if you're open for mobility or computer training or college like Mike has gone back to taking courses in college, get your cases open. Bam. Can I get a clarification is Allie leaving? Is that what Ben said? Yes,
yes. Yeah. And john, I
was wrong. Okay.
That's okay. Josh, who is new to our program. We'll be stepping in for an alleys position temporarily, I guess.
So on now to so who knows when they can replace her?
Yep. Right.
Yeah.
So we can just hope for the best. And I just offered help to Josh. So hopefully we can get this move in and keep everything going because alley was a great help for us. All right. Any other questions or concerns out there from anybody?
news.
All right, well, then I guess some, this was great, great conversation, good information. I love the support from all the states. I appreciate it. And we all reach out, reach out to me for anything and do whatever I can to help support the merchants in the NFP